


Dirthamen's Shadow: Scattered Tales from a Dalish Adolescence

by delawana



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Childhood, Childhood Friends, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Dalish Elves, F/M, Friendship, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22989436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delawana/pseuds/delawana
Summary: Before she was the Inquisitor, Raynda Lavellan was an orphaned Dalish child with dreams of becoming the best hunter the clan had ever seen. Inseparable from her best friend Tamaris, they were Dirthamen and Falon'Din, twin souls.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	1. Fragile & Foolhardy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** _Drabble:_ Hot wax cooled on a fingertip

The wax pooling beneath the wick of the candle was glassy, smooth, perfect.

_ She’s trouble. That boar almost killed my son.  _

_ She’s only ten. _

_ Old enough to know better. _

The canvas of the aravel couldn’t silence their words. 

_ Thoughtless, careless, reckless. _

Tam was fine - it was a scratch. But another reason for Mamae Nirasha to hate her.

The flame was hot, but beautiful too. Red, orange, yellow, blue, it danced.

_ Dangerous. Impulsive. Foolhardy. _

Her finger was burning, wax turning white. Dripping until it hardened away from the fire’s heart. Pain, but satisfying. It protected what was soft and fragile underneath. 


	2. First Times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prompt:** “Don’t be scared, I’m right here.” & “Everything is fine.”

“Slow down, Mir, you’re going too fast!” Tamaris called out to her as she sped through the underbrush not too far from their camp, disregarding the leaves and branches in her way and adapting her steps to the dips and inclines of the forest floor. It was practice; she wanted to be a hunter, the best hunter, and good hunters were one with the forest.

Raynda stopped to wait for him - and allow herself to catch her own breath, though that was something that she’d never admit she needed to do to Tam - and grumbled to herself about his slowness.  _ He _ wasn’t carrying a big, awkward bow on his back; he should be more agile. 

Then again, he always had seemed more at home with his faded yellow books than he did running through the forest with her, despite his incessant pronouncements that forests should belong to the elves. He’d always complained about twigs poking at his feet and constantly worried about splinters from the fallen logs that she bounded over with ease, silly worrywart that he was. He’d only gotten splinters once, anyway. Well, maybe twice, but really, it was his own fault, his feet would keep on being sensitive if he continued to coddle them. 

After what felt like hours he finally staggered beside her, exaggeratedly clutching his side as he tried to catch his breath. 

“I’m going just fast enough, you’re a slowpoke!” she said with a light punch to his arm. Tammy was such a fragile little bird of a thing. She might only be eleven, but even so she was fairly certain that if she hit even a little bit too hard he’d bruise like a peach.

“I am not!” he protested, smoothing his sweat-soaked dark hair back from his face. She’d tried to convince him so many times to keep his hair short but he never listened, insistent that the ancient elves from the stories the hahren told wouldn’t have cut theirs short. Her own red hair was cropped at her ears and never got in her way, and she preferred it like that.

“Are we almost there?” he asked through heavy breaths. “Where are you taking me anyway?”

“You’ll see!” 

She took his hand in hers and pulled him on, slower this time. For him, she told herself, and definitely not due to the increasing roughness of the terrain and her lack of familiarity with this part of the forest. 

The gnarled tree with branches that bent and twisted into some sort of sky seat, a bench halfway up in the air from which she could survey her kingdom, that was her landmark. She could see its leaves from a ways off, they were someone a darker green than those of the other trees. When they finally came close enough for her to see its roots jutting up against the base of a craggy escarpment she knew they’d arrived. 

Casting a bright smile at her friend and letting go of his hand, she approached some large, leafy bushes, pushed them aside, and walked forward, ignoring the pokes and scratches that left angry red welts on her arms.

She breathed in the smell of damp, black earth from the floor of the cave that was hidden behind the bushes. They were here.

The cave was exactly the perfect size for them. Large enough that she could keep some of her treasures here away from the prying eyes of her foster mother and small enough that nobody else was likely to find it. The tree just outside would be the perfect lookout for game, too.

“This is what you wanted to show me? A cave? I’ve seen caves before,” Tam said as he followed behind, holding his arms close to his chest to protect himself from the prickly bushes.

“It’s more than a cave! It’s something just for us, Tammy!” Gesticulating excitedly, she tried to share her enthusiasm with the boy, who seemed rather unconvinced of the value of a damp cave as a playhouse and was casting worried glances around the grotto.

“How do you know a bear doesn’t live here?” he asked as he inched backwards toward the cave’s opening.

“Everything’s fine! I’ve never seen any bears around here, but I’ll look around just for you, scaredy cat.” 

“Mamae says it’s good that I’m cautious,” Tam before squinting to steel himself for the next onslaught of the bushes as he pushed his way out.

Raynda’s eyes rolled back into her head as she went further into the cave and Tam turned back. She’d do her due diligence to make him happy, but there really didn’t seem to be anything that would make it clear that a bear lived here, no bones from meals that had been dragged in, no dung. At most there were some scattered red berries crushed on the floor, but those could be from anything, lots of animals eat berries. Even birds. Maybe birds liked her cave. Maybe they could find the bird with the berries and become friends with it and then they could even have a pet!

A sharp cry from outside of the cave made her jump. It wasn’t Tam’s “A bug bit me,” yelp, no, this was a full on, serious “I’m in real trouble” scream that made her stomach sink. She rushed out of the cave, not even noticing the scratches the bushes left on her face.

Tam was frozen in fear, pressed up against the stone wall only a few feet from the cave’s opening, and in front of him was a bear with fur black as night, snarling and baring his teeth. She wasn’t sure if the roiling in her gut was fear or anger that Tam had been right.

“Tammy!” she shrieked, her childish voice echoing shrilly against the rock. The bear didn’t even look at her; at least she could have run or played dead, that was what you were supposed to do with black bears, right? Or was that brown? It didn’t seem to matter now. 

With a deep, low growl that rumbled across her skin and made her hair stand on end, the bear raised himself onto his hind legs and towered over the now-sobbing elven boy. She took her bow from her pack, but, her hands shaking as they were, only tangled it up in her quiver. 

How could she have been this careless, she thought as she fumbled with her bow, finally untangling it and grabbing an arrow. It wouldn’t nock, the bowstring kept moving, and Tam was going to get hurt or killed and it would all be her fault, she was such an idiot! Everyone was right about her.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion as she struggled to pull the bowstring with trembling fingers. The bear roared and raised its paw over Tam, exposing its vicious claws.

It occurred to her that she had no idea where to even shoot a bear.

Suddenly the tips of the animal’s fur turned white and ice crackled as it formed over the rest of its body. Raynda felt a chill waft toward her and shivered, though she wasn’t sure that it was from cold. The bear was frozen in place, still snarling, and looking nearly as shocked as Tamaris. The young boy’s outstretched hand was still shaking.

The two children stood silently and stared at each other, Raynda lowering her bow and Tam ducking out from under the bear’s paw. Drops of water plinked onto the ground from the frozen bear.

“What did you do?” Raynda asked slowly, eyes round as saucers. She might have suggested that they move  _ away _ from the bear, who she wasn’t certain was still living or not, had her feet not been fixed where they were.

“I don’t know.” Tamaris looked as though he were in a daze. “I think I might have magic.” He held his hand up and studied it in wonderment. Nothing about it looked different. There was really no other explanation than magic, though. It seemed almost as ridiculous for Tam to say that he had magic as it would have been if he’d told her that he could fly. Her Tammy, a mage?

His lips turned up in a smile. “Do you know what this means, Mir?” he asked, grey eyes shining. “I can be First! I don’t have to sit with the boring old crafters anymore. Wait, why are you crying?”

Raynda sniffled and wiped at her nose. Why  _ was _ she crying? It was so silly. She shouldn’t be crying. 

“I don’t know!” she said as a sob caught in her throat. Her bow fell to the ground, clattering against the quiver that still lay on the forest floor, and Tam put his arms around her. 

“Don’t be scared, I’m right here. I’m still me.” She hugged him back, pressing her face into his shoulder and letting his shirt soak up the tears streaming down her cheeks. 

She shouldn’t be crying, Tam was safe and she was safe too, but somehow there was no comfort in that thought. As soon as they got back to camp and everyone knew about him, everything would be different. 

“Don’t forget me when you’re First, okay?” She tried to laugh, but it came out all phlegmy.

He pulled away from her and took her hand, smiling gently. His hand was squishy and warm. She had half expected it to feel cold.

“Don’t worry Mir, no matter what happens we’re always going to be together.”


	3. Adjustments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: “I heard you talking in your sleep,” & “It’s okay, I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

Sleeping in a shared bunk in an aravel had more drawbacks than benefits, Raynda thought as she turned over on her side and covered her head with her blanket in an effort to drown out the sound of Tam talking in his sleep. If it had just been some sort of steady rhythm that would have been one thing, but the way he kept randomly exclaiming, “Yes, Keeper!” was making it hard to drift off.

It was easier to blame her sleeplessness on that rather than the worries that had been circling through her mind. Tammy had only been First for a month and everything had already changed so much. He was always off somewhere with the Keeper and was  _ so annoying _ about his new staff. Constantly talking about glyphs or something and how the curvature of the wood was optimal for some sort of magic thingy that she didn’t understand… why couldn’t things just go back to the way they were before?

She huffed a breath out through her nose as Tam mumble-cried some protestation to the Keeper about him not being ready.

There was movement beside her and she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder.

“Mir, are you awake?” her foster brother whispered, his voice breathy and a little shaky.

She rolled onto her back and turned her head to look at him. It was tough to see in the darkened aravel, but there was enough light filtering through the canvas for her to sort of make out his face in the dimness. His dark eyebrows were knitted together in what she’d call worry in anyone else, but she was pretty sure that that was Tam’s natural look.

“Yeah, I’m up,” she whispered back.

“I hope I didn’t wake you up, I know I can be noisy.”

“Noisier than a halla in heat,” she told him with a giggle and a soft punch to the arm. “It’s okay, I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

“I was thinking about something the Keeper wants me to do next week -”

Raynda cut him off with some irritation before he could finish. “Yeah, I heard you talking in your sleep.”

He shot her a disgruntled look before ignoring her and continuing like nothing had happened. “We need to carve another glyph into my staff so that it helps me to get around the veil…” Tam droned on with some excessively long explanation of whatever it was that he was planning to do. Raynda was tired and the Fade was stupid, and magic was stupid, and Tammy… well, Tammy wasn’t stupid, but he could be rather long-winded.

“Would you shut up about your staff? It’s the middle of the night.”

Outside of the aravel she could hear crickets chirping. The air suddenly felt heavy as she felt the tension rising from her friend. 

“You’re just mad that I can do something that you can’t, for once.” 

Heat rose to her cheeks. She wasn’t! It was just annoying that they didn’t have time to play together any more and the only things he seemed to want to talk about were all the new things he was learning that she couldn’t understand and about his ‘weapon,’ if you could call a glorified stick a weapon.

She wallowed in her own bitterness until the thought struck her that that was all a bow was too, a stick bent and carved into a tool.

That everytime she had told him about some modification to her bow Tam had always listened patiently, even though he could only sort of fumble about with one.

That Tam had never been too busy whenever she wanted to drag him on some adventure.

Maybe she  _ was _ just jealous.

“I’m sorry, Tammy,” she said, breaking the silence between them. “I’m not used to needing to share you, I guess.”

“Well you’re going to have to get used to it. You used to protect me, but now I need to protect  _ everyone _ . It’s important, Mir,” he said passionately, tensing up his shoulders. Raynda felt guilt tying her stomach into little knots at her own selfishness. 

Tam turned his head away from her and stared up at the ceiling of the aravel and his tone became more subdued. “It’s a little scary, too, sometimes.”

“Because you can suddenly freeze things to death?” she asked, remembering the circumstances under which it had been discovered that Tam had magic at all. If she were in Tam’s place, she thought, that would be the most odd thing to get used to.

“Because I want to be a good Keeper someday.”

She brushed his shoulder with her hand reassuringly. “You’ll be the best keeper, Tammy.” 


	4. The Halla Keeper's Journal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Codex Entry: A story from your OC’s childhood

6 Justinian, 9:26 Dragon:

She came around again today to ask after Ivuna. I don’t like children around my halla and told her as much, but she said that she’s not a child. I suppose she isn’t anymore, seeing as she goes out with the hunters now, but I wouldn’t quite call her grown either. Girl’s been wandering the camp like she’s lost her shadow for months. I have some sympathy for her - I remember when Istimaethoriel became First. Sometimes I wonder how it might have been between us had she not. There’s no use dwelling on the past, though.

7 Justinian, 9:26 Dragon

It could be any day now for Ivuna. I heard wolves crying in the night, far closer to the camp than they had any right to be. It’s worrying to have her out in the field in her condition. I’d stay with her but ever since my eyes started to go I fear I wouldn’t be of much use. We must trust that Ghilan’nain will protect her own.

8 Justinian, 9:26 Dragon

Lost Nellas today. I found him bloody in the pen and had hoped to clean up without a fuss but Raynda came early to check on Ivuna. She was inconsolable that Ivuna had lost her mate and cried because “they were supposed to be together,” but helped me take care of it nonetheless. She’s insisted on sleeping out in the pen tonight so that she wouldn’t be alone and against my better judgement I agreed. If there’s any progress with Ivuna she is to fetch me. I suspect that from the distress she’s been in it will be tonight.

I will miss Nellas; if eyes could speak he always had a kind word for me.

9 Justinian, 9:26 Dragon

I can finally rest easy as a healthy young calf joined us midway through the night. When I got out to the pen this morning I was inclined to be angry at the sight of the calf awkwardly shambling about, but I soon understood why. In one corner of the enclosure were charred and blackened wolf carcasses, some stuffed with arrows and a few still smoking. The girl was sitting on the hay inside the shelter, Ivuna pressed against her to her right and the boy’s head in her lap as he slept. She couldn’t leave him, she told me by way of apology, he’d never done that much magic before and was tired, but assured me that the wolves would no longer be a threat. 

I named the calf after her mother, at her request.

_Excerpt from the journal of a halla keeper found in the woods half buried in tracks from landships._


End file.
